Biological Innovations that Built the World

Biological Innovations that Built the World
Author: Roberto Ligrone
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2019-05-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030160572

The book is a detailed account of major biological events that contributed to create the present world and our species, with emphasis on cause-effect interrelationships and environmental impact. Its main goal is to guide the reader toward an understanding of the continuity of life across diversity, and of its large-scale interactions with the planet. Combining scientific soundness with a constant effort for clarity, the book begins with a cloud of dust in a corner of the Galaxy and, covering an immense lapse of time, terminates with an organism that ponders about the texture of the Universe. Comprehensive, updated references added to each chapter will help the reader wishing to expand any of the topics. A glossary explains less common technical terms.

Evolution Made to Order

Evolution Made to Order
Author: Helen Anne
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2016-11-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 022639011X

Plant breeders have long sought technologies to extend human control over nature. Early in the twentieth century, this led some to experiment with startlingly strange tools like x-ray machines, chromosome-altering chemicals, and radioactive elements. Contemporary reports celebrated these mutation-inducing methods as ways of generating variation in plants on demand. Speeding up evolution, they imagined, would allow breeders to genetically engineer crops and flowers to order. Creating a new food crop or garden flower would soon be as straightforward as innovating any other modern industrial product. In Evolution Made to Order, Helen Anne Curry traces the history of America’s pursuit of tools that could intervene in evolution. An immersive journey through the scientific and social worlds of midcentury genetics and plant breeding and a compelling exploration of American cultures of innovation, Evolution Made to Order provides vital historical context for current worldwide ethical and policy debates over genetic engineering.

How We Got to Now

How We Got to Now
Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2015-09-22
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1594633932

This book is a celebration of ideas: how they happen and their sometimes unintended results. Johnson shows how simple scientific breakthroughs have driven other discoveries through the network of ideas and innovations that made each finding possible. He traces important inventions through ancient and contemporary history, unlocking tales of unsung heroes and radical revolutions that changed the world and the way we live in it

The Vital Question

The Vital Question
Author: Nick Lane
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: Cells
ISBN: 9781781250372

A game-changing book on the origins of life, called the most important scientific discovery 'since the Copernican revolution' in The Observer.

The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution

The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution
Author: Susan Hockfield
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0393634752

"Entertaining and prescient…Hockfield demonstrates how nature’s molecular riches may be leveraged to provide potential solutions to some of humanity’s existential challenges." —Adrian Woolfson, Science A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies that radically reshaped the world: radios, televisions, aircraft, computers, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. Today, a new technological convergence—of biology and engineering—promises to create the tools necessary to tackle the threats we now face, including climate change, drought, famine, and disease World-renowned neuroscientist and academic leader Susan Hockfield describes the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped to create them. Virus-built batteries. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Computer-engineered crops. Together, they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the twenty-first century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.

Biological Collections

Biological Collections
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2021-01-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309498538

Biological collections are a critical part of the nation's science and innovation infrastructure and a fundamental resource for understanding the natural world. Biological collections underpin basic science discoveries as well as deepen our understanding of many challenges such as global change, biodiversity loss, sustainable food production, ecosystem conservation, and improving human health and security. They are important resources for education, both in formal training for the science and technology workforce, and in informal learning through schools, citizen science programs, and adult learning. However, the sustainability of biological collections is under threat. Without enhanced strategic leadership and investments in their infrastructure and growth many biological collections could be lost. Biological Collections: Ensuring Critical Research and Education for the 21st Century recommends approaches for biological collections to develop long-term financial sustainability, advance digitization, recruit and support a diverse workforce, and upgrade and maintain a robust physical infrastructure in order to continue serving science and society. The aim of the report is to stimulate a national discussion regarding the goals and strategies needed to ensure that U.S. biological collections not only thrive but continue to grow throughout the 21st century and beyond.

Building the Future of Innovation on Millions of Years of Natural Intelligence

Building the Future of Innovation on Millions of Years of Natural Intelligence
Author: Leen Gorissen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2020-04-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9789464007572

Despite endless change and disruption, massive upheaval and cosmic collisions, nature has survived the worst of times and thrived in the best of them for 3.8 billion years. She knows what works, what lasts and what contributes to the future of life on Earth. She is the undisputed master of continuous innovation, adaptation and, ultimately, regeneration. What if we humans could tap into the power of the Natural Intelligence that stood the test of time and model our businesses after the proven success stories of nature? What if we could fast track innovation and develop responsible products and agile organisations? We might learn to become life-friendly and self-renewing right where we are and transform our current degenerative value system into a regenerative one. This may sound like science fiction, but is already happening. In this book, Leen Gorissen, PhD in Biology, covers breakthrough insights from the life sciences and how these change the way we look at change and innovation. She shares some of the most advanced thinking and novelties in bio-inspired innovation - covering disciplines like biomimicry, biophilia, permaculture, living systems thinking, nature-based solutions and regenerative design - and clusters these nature-inspired disciplines under the umbrella of NI. Because nature is the largest R&D project in history. Millions of years of field tests have led to designs that outclass any man-made design in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, adaptability, resiliency and endurance. By tapping into the potential of NI, the business world can become an important engine of planetary regeneration and a beacon of creativity and meaningful work spreading hope and ingenuity, not despair and burn-out.

Industrialization of Biology

Industrialization of Biology
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2015-06-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309316553

The tremendous progress in biology over the last half century - from Watson and Crick's elucidation of the structure of DNA to today's astonishing, rapid progress in the field of synthetic biology - has positioned us for significant innovation in chemical production. New bio-based chemicals, improved public health through improved drugs and diagnostics, and biofuels that reduce our dependency on oil are all results of research and innovation in the biological sciences. In the past decade, we have witnessed major advances made possible by biotechnology in areas such as rapid, low-cost DNA sequencing, metabolic engineering, and high-throughput screening. The manufacturing of chemicals using biological synthesis and engineering could expand even faster. A proactive strategy - implemented through the development of a technical roadmap similar to those that enabled sustained growth in the semiconductor industry and our explorations of space - is needed if we are to realize the widespread benefits of accelerating the industrialization of biology. Industrialization of Biology presents such a roadmap to achieve key technical milestones for chemical manufacturing through biological routes. This report examines the technical, economic, and societal factors that limit the adoption of bioprocessing in the chemical industry today and which, if surmounted, would markedly accelerate the advanced manufacturing of chemicals via industrial biotechnology. Working at the interface of synthetic chemistry, metabolic engineering, molecular biology, and synthetic biology, Industrialization of Biology identifies key technical goals for next-generation chemical manufacturing, then identifies the gaps in knowledge, tools, techniques, and systems required to meet those goals, and targets and timelines for achieving them. This report also considers the skills necessary to accomplish the roadmap goals, and what training opportunities are required to produce the cadre of skilled scientists and engineers needed.

Ten Pulses of Evolution

Ten Pulses of Evolution
Author: Michael A. Susko
Publisher: AllrOneofUs Publishing
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2020-05-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1393536506

This work offers a novel way to map evolutionary time from life's origin to the first humans. Rather than using a traditional, linear scale in which events bunch up toward the end, a logarithmic scale is employed that expands our resolution as we come to the present. Such a scale allows us to detect patterns that would otherwise be invisible and arrange evolutionary events in memorable fashion. The basic concept of logarithms is not complicated, as we will simply halve units as we move from the past to the present in order to highlight major evolutionary change. Thus, we find the start of life to be approximately four billion years ago, the nucleated cell at two billion years ago, complex multicellularity at one billion years ago, and so on. Remarkably, we find the major events of evolution, along with the certainty of supporting evidence, to be pulsed with logarithmic regularity. This chart also reveals that each Major Node represents change in three major arenas, making for significant leaps in consciousness, gains in mobility, and increased social connectivity. Come, take this evolutionary journey and discover the surprising pattern of logarithmic time, with changes that would seem to have no end.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution
Author: Klaus Schwab
Publisher: Crown Currency
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1524758876

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.